A Mixed Bag Life Update IX
It’s been a challenging period of time since my last life update, Erin had gotten a job, transferred to another job, got fired for bullshit reasons, and got into another car wreck. My vision had deteriorated to a point where I am unable to drive safely at night, and might not be able to renew my driver’s license at all. Our son, Conner has gotten himself together and is a straight-A student in his final year of High School, and our daughter, Alya has become more problematic, lacking the motivation to do much of anything.
Let’s work backward, starting with Erin getting fired for bullshit reasons, I did have a more expansive version of this story, but Erin asked me not to post the full name and shame exposè. Erin transferred to this newly formed unnamed company, to continue to manage a property, she had been managing for four months, under a different management company. They fired her on Wednesday, claiming she clearly did not want the job, as she did not answer the phone, or respond to emails, which is utter nonsense. I was party to Erin doing her job, as we shared an office at home, this company’s claims are 100% unfounded. This company failed to provide Erin with the tools she needed to succeed, I’ll leave it there!
I stopped driving at night before the New Year as I was struggling really badly to see clearly while driving at night, feeling unsafe behind the wheel. Just after the New Year, my vision took a major turn for the worse and was referred to a specialist eye doctor, who injected some medicine directly into my eye, which I am not ashamed to say freaked me out. This is an effort to reverse some swelling in my eye due to my diabetes diagnosis. The injection in my right eye was actually painless, to my amazement. Sadly, this has not helped, 3 weeks after the shot, my vision has not improved, but I have one more injection in my eye to complete the treatment, so I am hoping my vision will improve after the second treatment.
I can live without driving at night, but I need to be able to drive during the day, my job kinda depends on it, as part of my work is taking photos of properties we manage. Like I mentioned above, hopefully, the second injection will help, and combined with a stronger glasses prescription, I will be able to continue to drive during daylight conditions. To be able to renew my driver’s license this October, 27, which also happens to be my 46th birthday, I am really hoping for a birthday present from Kansas DMV!
Our son, Conner has really made a significant improvement in his maturity, work ethic, and school grades, regular readers will know this has not been the case in years past. As we approach the end of the second semester of his senior year of high school, he is within a couple of percentage points of being a straight-A student and has appeared on the honor roll. Erin and I could not be more proud of how he has gotten it together in the past year. Conner has chosen to go to WSU and has filled out all the paperwork, applied for federal student aid, and we are hoping with his grades, he’ll be able to get a partial or full scholarship, which would be nice, instead of starting his post-college life with $60-100k of debt.
Our daughter Alya, on the other hand, is having major issues, mainly with motivation, ever since the remote learning during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, she has been wanting to sleep more and more, and during the pandemic remote learning, she would often fall asleep during class, with me having to nudge her awake. Trying to get her out of bed in the morning is like pulling teeth, I’ll get her to the edge of her bed, and it seems like she is going to get up, so I leave her room, to continue my morning routine, only to go back to her room, 15 minutes later, to find her asleep. When I finally get her up, she drags her heels like crazy, so I have to leave her behind as I need to get Conner to school, 7 miles away on the south side of town. I ask Erin to help me out, to get her to school on time, but often when I get back to the house at 7:55-8am, Alya is just coming out the door, she is supposed to be in school by 7:50am.
Alya only wants to play with her friends, and we even caught her on her phone talking to her friends at 3am. This weekend, she is grounded because of being tardy for school twice in two days, and barely made it just in time a third time because of her dragging her feet. This is very concerning as she becomes a teenager this November. Before the pandemic, Alya was consistently on the honor roll semester after semester, I don’t know whether I can blame the remote learning or not, but even after returning to a physical school, the issues have continued, probably exacerbated by transitioning from elementary to middle school. Clearly, we need some professional help to resolve these issues with Alya.
All the way back in July 2021, Erin got into a third car wreck, for which, she was not at fault Erin had her turn signal on to enter a parking lot, when another driver pulled out in front of her, claiming, you had your blinker on, trying to blame Erin for the collision. Bottom line, the other driver entered the flow of traffic when it was not clear, Erin’s intention was to turn into the next entrance, 20 feet down the road. Our insurance covered the repair, with us having to pay a $500 deductible, the other drivers’ insurance, Geico is dragging their heels in paying out the $2,300 claim seven months later, while our insurance, Progressive chase reimbursement, including our deductible, this seems to be par for the course in the US.
Closing out, we will miss the added income from Erin’s job, it has helped us make a decent impact on our debt over the past six months, and as we just filed our taxes, we will be getting a $3,700 refund, which will replace Erin’s part-time income for 3 to 4 months. And there is a possibility of another $3,000 back as part of the expanded child tax credit which was part of Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan passed in March 2021. I’m pissed off with Erin’s former employer for the lies they perpetrated against her, for the reasons in the second paragraph, but at least we are not going to be financially screwed by their actions.